The nineth part of a sparrow

Thersites:Lo, lo, lo, lo, what modicums of wit he utters! his evasions have ears thus long. I have bobbed his brain more than he has beat my bones: I will buy nine sparrows for a penny, and his pia mater is not worth the nineth part of a sparrow. This lord, Achilles, Ajax, who wears his wit in his belly and his guts in his head, I’ll tell you what I say of him.

Troilus and Cressida – William Shakespeare

—

Chorus: Yes, she, Lucy Finn, not known for her patience or statecraft. She is celebrated for her fearless interpretations, intolerant of theater critics, New York rib joints, men generally, ex-husbands particularly. She is esteemed, but not beloved. Now dying of some awful viral scourge, probably. Fevered, alone, reminiscent in her grief, with a beautiful and dead Venezuelan boy locked up in the spare bedroom, occupying too much of her attention.

Lucy Finn: Help me, Victorio, I believe I am dying.

Victorio: Rest, dear Lucille. Shall I bring you your cigarettes, or would you prefer a magnificent ripened orange? You have not told me what mood you’re in.

Chorus: (Snorts). Lucille? Victorio was her first husband, and the only man who would ever call her that. She despises that version of her name. People would compare her to that other redhead, that vaudevillian redhead, the one with the television program. Not a real actress, not by any measure. Only Victorio could call her by that name and make it sound so erotic.

Lucy Finn: That fancy gin you bought me. Over crushed ice, please. With orange peel? My throat is so dry.

Victorio: Of course.

Chorus: Lucy recalls Victorio has been dead for nearly thirty-seven years. A suicide. He liked the young boys, had a fondness for them, and she caught him in the back of their Lincoln Town Car, his soft brown fingers stretching a condom over a fifteen-year-old boy’s semi-flaccid cock.

Thersites: “Prithee, be silent, boy; I profit not by thy talk; thou art thought to be Achilles’ male varlet.”

Lucy Finn: I loved that role. I was born to play it. And god-damn those critics who said it was not a woman’s role. It was an actor’s role. God-damn them all. I should have won the Drama Desk Award that year.

Davison Petre: You were volcanic, my love. You were Lawrence Olivier if Olivier were a woman.

Lucy Finn: Or if he could be me, and a much better actor.

Davison Petre: Really, darling? You’re too much for your own good. What are you going to do about that dead boy in the bedroom? This is the middle of April, my sweet, and that corruption is practically in full blossom.

Lucy Finn: I don’t know, Davison. Could you help me? I’m really not feeling very well.

Chorus: Davison was really not there, of course. They divorced almost two years after Troilus and Cressida finished its brief Broadway run. It took them that long to realize they were not particularly tragic, just two semi-real people who did not like each other very much. Davison finished his career as a character actor in minor network sitcoms and movies-of-the-week. The last time Lucy heard from him, he was working on a memoir he hoped would be picked up by Random House. He was one of the first ‘celebrities’ to succumb to this new and outrageous virus. That was nine days ago. Sometimes Lucy forgets she was married to him.

Lucy Finn: Davison?

Daniel Large: I don’t know who that is. Was he an actor friend of yours?

Lucy Finn: He was… yes, something like that. Have you come here to help me with my little problem?

Daniel Large: Honey, I’m your big problem now. We signed a contract, remember? Branson, Missouri? That little theater gig you were supposed to headline? “Shakespeare and the Romulans”, or whatever it was called? You never showed up, and I gave you a lot of advance money. And now the devil has come for his due.

Lucy Finn: I don’t know you! I don’t remember you! I don’t think I would do such a thing. I’m practically retired now. I’m practically a legend now. Why would I ruin that? Why would I do something so foolish and… and so meaningless? I was the best Thersites, no matter what the reviewers wrote. I should have won for that performance, instead of Jessica Tandy for whatever bullshit play she was in. Poor dear, she was a pity-win, don’t you think?

Daniel Large: You asking me? Look here, you signed the papers. Old broads like you, I know you need your fancy boys and gigolos to help you believe you’re not past your best-before date, but sweetheart, you’re way past that now. You’re practically expired. You gonna get on that bus, or do I have to drag you there myself? And Jessica Tandy won for The Gin Game that year, and she was glorious.

Lucy Finn: You… you’re… you are not a very nice character. In fact, I would say you’re a cliché . This is not a 1970’s detective show, when that kind of acting was so commonplace. This is real life. You don’t belong here anymore.

Daniel Large: Ain’t nothing real about your life, lady. What about that boy in your spare room? Is he even real? Have you checked on him lately?

Thersites: “I would thou didst itch from head to foot and I had the scratching of thee; I would make thee the loathsomest scab in Greece. When thou art forth in the incursions, thou strikest as slow as another.”

Chorus: Daniel Large was an unemployed actor she met in 1997. He volunteered as a stagehand in a Trenton, New Jersey production of Henry VI, Part II. Lucy was cast as Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester. He was a large man in many ways, and Lucy took him to her bed throughout the entire run of the play, which was four performances. She was not even certain if ‘Large’ was his real name, but he was, and she enjoyed him, and never saw him again. She played the role of Eleanor indifferently, and can remember only one of her lines:

Lucy Finn: There are no small parts of me that do not ache for some comfort. To be held and reassured, and, yes, solaced by a perfumed whirlwind of adoration. You are all gone, all gone. If I pass, when I pass, it will be a surrender, not a walkaway, and none will remember me, by name, by scattered fortunes. The playbills have all faded, all cinders and dust now, inhaled by a morbid breeze. God-damn it, Roy, why did you send them away? I was ready! The wigs were freshly powdered, my contours smoothed and colored, the Bard’s words leaning strongly against my lips, ready to rush… or walk… or tumble artfully in their proper exclamations of grief and submission. I was ready to go on! Roy! Why did you shutter the lights and empty all the seats?

Roy Alabaster: None were seated, my dear. None! A few stray tickets, perhaps, collected by collectors to wipe their bums or freshen their ruined beds, but they were all taken by plague, all but a few who wander their rooms, starved for pity, seeking light, seeking better dreams than what currently adorns them. There are no lights to shutter, it is all gone dark now.

Lucy Finn: But what of the boy? Did he not attend to me? Did he wish to bear witness for me? I am blameless for my husband’s sins. There is no boy locked within that room, it is his ghost. Tell me so, I plead with you. There is no boy!

Roy Alabaster: Though you are not innocent, your reckoning will be kind, m’lady. T’is true. There is no boy, but for the one you project your own darkness upon. That boy ruined you as he himself was ruined. But he is gone, and now you too can rest, and peacefully, dear Lucy. Most peacefully.

Lucy Finn: Thank you Roy. You have been a good and kind manager to me. I think our business is done here now. I wish you well, old friend. May we both see clearly beyond our fevered imaginings, as we glance upon whatever truth rests beyond us.

Chorus: And Lucy slept, and she dreamed of certain things, and none of them could harm her.

—

Chorus: But wait! There is still the matter of the beautiful and dead Venezuelan boy locked up in the spare bedroom, now occupying none of her attention.Lo, lo, lo, lo, what of he, dear friends, what of he?

Thanks, Diana; ‘Experiments’ is a good word for it. 🙂 We’re well isolated and doing fine. We keep to ourselves anyway, so it hasn’t been much of a burden. A little more anxious, is all. I’m glad you’re doing okay.